The present invention relates to a credit card and, more particularly to a credit card having a touch-tone signal generation function.
Conventional credit cards have a little difference in their designs, but have a similar structure such that a card number and the card holder's name are embossed on a plastic card in the size of business card, and a magnetic tape storing a secret number of the card holder and other information is attached to one side of the card.
Information on the magnetic tape of a credit card is read by a card reader of POS (Purchase & Ordering System) terminals or bank's ATM (Automatic Teller Machine), and the read information is used for transactions such as payment approval, and cashing or loan.
Along with recent increase of the number of overseas travelers, most credit cards are available abroad as "international cards" by commercial tie-up among credit companies, and their usefulness has increased.
Services offered by those credit card companies, however, have few differences, and it cannot be said that one credit card is considerably better than another. Furthermore, one credit card cannot be privilegedly discriminated from the other, since both cards are commonly available over many shops.
A service most recently offered by the credit card companies is a system where a credit card holder can use his/her card to make an international phone call from a public telephone and pay the bill through the credit card account. Accordingly, the card holder do not have to pay for rather expensive international call in cash, thus being advantageous for travelers not to carry a large amount of cash.
Furthermore, the telephone companies offer a service where a user can enjoy assistance from his/her own language-speaking telephone operator (e.g. a Japanese-speaking telephone operator) by dialing a particular number, when the user makes an international call from the abroad.
However, even though the payment can be made by the credit card, or the operation service in his/her own language-speaking (e.g. Japanese) is offered, a particular telephone number needs to be called without errors in a visiting country to receive those services. Thus, it is still difficult for most of travelers to make an international call from the visiting country. From the point of view of a traveler, making a phone call from abroad is still troublesome.
Considering this situation, development of this current system to make an international call by using a credit card is desirable. At the same time, from the point of view as a credit card issuer, it is desired to provide a credit card which is advantageously distinguishable from other cards.